Pubdate: Sat, 06 Dec 2014
Source: Press-Enterprise (Riverside, CA)
Copyright: 2014 The Press-Enterprise Company
Contact: http://www.pe.com/localnews/opinion/letters_form.html
Website: http://www.pe.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/830

FAILURE OF 'WAR ON DRUGS' SURE TO CONTINUE

For four decades, the "war on drugs" has yielded more harm than good. 
With a trillion dollars spent, a million drug-related arrests a year 
and international interdiction efforts to stop people from 
intoxicating themselves, it is clear that drug prohibition has been a failure.

Drug prohibition, as with alcohol prohibition, is yet another 
showcase of the failure to suppress desires through decree. 
Inevitably, unintended consequences arise as markets adjust and adapt 
to legal prohibition, and the market goes underground.

The Press-Enterprise recently reported on a few such unintended 
consequences of drug prohibition. There have been multiple cases of 
drug lab explosions, a proliferation of unauthorized marijuana 
growing operations and a need by local governments to ban synthetic 
analogues of illegal drugs.

There have been around a dozen known drug lab explosions in the 
Inland Empire in the last couple of years. At least half a dozen such 
explosions have occurred in San Bernardino County. The explosions 
variously pertain to potentially dangerous meth labs or 
marijuana-related operations.

One particularly dangerous form of marijuana extraction processes is 
the production of wax or honey oil concoctions, which involve 
assorted gasses and compounds that may explode if the preparation is 
done improperly. Multiple individuals have suffered severe burns in 
drug extractions gone awry, conducted even in households with children in them.

Drug laws have not  and will not  prevent individuals from conducting 
such dangerous experiments in their basements and households. With 
underground markets, health and safety codes, zoning laws and any 
semblance of oversight do not apply.

The incentives created by drug prohibition make it such that, to 
some, risking serious bodily harm and legal repercussions are worth the risk.

At this point, it is clear that outlawing drugs will continue to have 
the unintended consequence of driving some individuals to risk the 
health and safety of themselves, their children and their community, 
to profit from skirting prohibition.

Another issue, in Riverside County, particularly, is the 
proliferation of unauthorized outdoor marijuana growing operations.

Supervisor Kevin Jeffries has claimed that his staff personally 
counted 300 such operations in his district alone. While claims that 
any of these grows are related to Mexican drug cartels have thus far 
proven unsubstantiated, the proliferation of marijuana operations 
without authorization shows just how implausible it is to rein in 
such operations.

The Board of Supervisors is expected to weigh in on a proposal by Mr. 
Jeffries to assess minor penalties on individuals who grow marijuana 
without government permission in the unincorporated communities of 
Riverside County. The proposal is unlikely to have any significant 
impact one way or another.

Meanwhile, in recent months, the cities of Moreno Valley and Jurupa 
Valley have issued bans of synthetic drugs marketed as bath salts or 
incense, which mimic the effects of banned drugs like marijuana. Many 
other cities in the Inland Empire have taken similar action.

The prohibition of marijuana has clearly led to the rise of less-safe 
synthetic alternatives that may very well do far more harm than the 
plant they seek to mimic.

The region, state, country and the parts of the world impacted by 
drug markets will continue to see the unintended consequences of drug 
prohibition until policymakers in countries like the United States 
reconsider their perpetually failed efforts.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom